Chris Siebenmann over on his personal web page at the University of Toronto writes about X networking. He points out two main shortcomings preventing realization of the original vision of network transparancy. One is network speed and latency. The other is a too narrow scope for X's communication facilities.
X's network transparency was not designed as 'it will run xterm well'; originally it was to be something that should let you run almost everything remotely, providing a full environment. Even apart from the practical issues covered in Daniel Stone's slide presentation [warning for PDF], it's clear that it's been years since X could deliver a real first class environment over the network. You cannot operate with X over the network in the same way that you do locally. Trying to do so is painful and involves many things that either don't work at all or perform so badly that you don't want to use them.
Remote display protocols remain useful, but it's time to admit another way will have to be found. What's the latest word on Wayland or Mir?
Source : X's network transparency has wound up mostly being a failure
(Score: 1) by Burz on Saturday February 10 2018, @04:53PM
What?! You want to make the user coordinate multiple tools when the application / use case calls for video in the app? You want to prevent the app author from creating an integrated presentation? Sending a pre-compressed stream to the client isn't an option? HA. That's why people can't conference effectively on an X11 based machine.
As for "font madness", it only seems that way because you use an OS lacking a well-defined set of core fonts.